Evaluation of spontaneous and weedy flora of vineyards for ecosystem services provision using the indicator VIFLORES

Resumen

Spontaneous flora of vineyards in the Mediterranean region has lately been receiving much attention, due to the increasing awareness of their benefits for agroecosystems, soils, and for provisioning multiple Ecosystem Services (ES). However, initiatives for valuing flora often clash with the potential losses by interference with vines, but in an extent difficult to evaluate. We developed the index VIFLORES – VIneyard FLORa Value for Ecosystem Services -, aiming to assess the value of spontaneous plant species for ES provision in vineyards. VIFLORES ranges from 0 (lowest value) to 1 (maximum), calculated by the average of the contribution of the co-occurring species to the three ES categories: Provisioning (e.g. medicinal use), Regulation and Maintenance (e.g. pollination), and Cultural Services (e.g. landscape aesthetics). To map and compare the floristic values of vineyards, we propose an integration of species abundance, phenology and VIFLORES. To test this approach, we carried out 192 floristic surveys in Spring 2021 for three vineyards located in the Alentejo winegrowing region (South of Portugal) with different production management systems, namely Conventional (CPS), Integrated in Optidose (IPS), and Organic (OPS). IPS and OPS inter rows were significantly more diverse than CPS and had a high VIFLORES value. OPS vineyard rows had significantly higher diversity and indicator values than CPS and IPS, which is likely related to soil management. While VIFLORES approach guides to fostering of multifunctional vineyards, it is still limited in incorporating the seasonality of weedy flora and needs validated thresholds for better decisions on soil management.